Bramshaw ones get smashed twice, once by Odiham then later at the Cuckoo beer festival

Odiham & Greywell 1st XI v Bramshaw 1st XI – HCL Division 1, Match Report by Bailey Loveless

On an overcast day with a bit of rain around Bram made the hour trip north to Odiham. With only Coombs unavailable, as he was in Marbella, there was hope in the changing room that we could get our season off with a win.

Arnold called incorrectly at the toss and we were sent. TA opened up with Sergio “hard hands” D’monte and we got through the first 10 for no loss in testing conditions.

The rest of us were cheering our team on hoping to just watch these two bat except Micheal Kingston who had a conspiracy theory that Coombs was not actually flying out to Spain so he proceeded to check Skyscanner for flights.

D’monte was then castled for 13 which brought Jack Booth to the crease. Arnold and Booth looked solid with the latter playing an exceptional drive back past the bowler for four. We seemed well set at 50-1 but then came the famous Bramshaw crumble with no custard. Arnold was sent back with a hooping in-swinger then the middle order fell apart with an inform Patel getting knocked over with a hack across the line. Only Skyscanner and Jamie Martin provided any resistance as we were bowled out for 104 in what we thought were testing conditions. The Odiham bowlers all bowled incredibly accurately with Kettle picking up a 4fer.

We then indulged in a beautiful tea as Odiham always provides a superb spread. They said any club that don’t do teas is “tinpot” and we tend to agree with this.

D’monte and Kingston opened up with Kingston removing their Aussie overseas early. However Munt, who has been battling Arnold for the County 1 batting award for the last few seasons, played an aggressive innings which took the wind out of our sails with a brilliant 79 (49). They chased it 1 down in 13 overs and were done by 4.

A disappointing day at the office but with it being many of the sides first cricket of the season surely things can only get better from here.

Odiham were superb hosts as always and gave us beers after the game. They also have Asahi on tap which is why we love playing there. In all seriousness, they’re a great side who will be vying for promotion this year after falling just short in previous seasons and we wish them well for the rest of the season.

A big thanks to Theresa for scoring in very cold conditions. It’s the volunteers that make Bram a great club.

We then drove back to the forest and went to the Cuckoo beer festival where we saw George Gray and his jeans which seems to be getting tighter and tighter every time we see him as we tried to forget about our day at cricket.

See the full scorecard here – https://bramshaw.play-cricket.com/website/results/6082748